Cake Decorating Workshop & Cape Verdean Community History Project Concert
SubjectPortrait of
Jorge Job
(Cape Verdean, 1928 - 2021)
SubjectPortrait of
Djim Job
(Cape Verdean-American)
SubjectPortrait of
John DeBrito
(Cape Verdean, 1928 - 2014)
DateJuly 1999
Mediumnegative film strips
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.337.1-.25
Description2015.196.337.1-.12: Photographs of a Cake Decorating Workshop, held in conjunction with the Mano a Mano project, July 19-23, 1999. The photos show workshop participants at the cake decorating workshop given by Amelia Fonseca from Puerto Rico, held at La Casa Elderly Housing on Park St., Hartford.
2015.196.337.13-.24: Photographs of a concert celebrating CCHAP's Cape Verdean Community History Project with Jorge Job and Djim Job, July 17, 1999. The photos show a musical performance at the Cape Verdean Social Club in Waterbury, with musicians Jorge Job (cavaquinho), Djim Job (bass guitar), and John deBrito (violin), along with other musicians and audience members and Pelagio Silva, President of the Cape Verdean Social Club.
NotesBiographical Note for 2015.196.337.1-.12: Cake Decorator Amelia Fonseca de Nuñez, of Carolina, Puerto Rico presented a cake decorating workshop on July 19-23, 1999, in conjunction with the exhibition, "Mano a Mano: Puerto Rican Traditional Arts from Island to City." Both Amelia and her sister developed an interest in "labores manuales" while growing up in Santurce, a working class suburb of San Juan. In Amelia's case she concentrated on cake baking and decorating, making special confections for friends and family from her early 20's. In Puerto Rico many young women attend local classes in their communities for various domestic crafts, and Amelia refined her decorative techniques in this way. She has continued to make cakes primarily for family celebrations and local events, getting business through word of mouth. Her specialty is pastillaje, handmade edible sugar paste decorations fashioned into flowers and shapes. She prefers to decorate cakes with "pasta laminada," a handmade edible sugar paste with a shiny finish that is worked into many different shapes by hand, like clay. 2015.196.337.13-.24: Photographs of a concert celebrating CCHAP's Cape Verdean Community History Project with Jorge Job and Djim Job, July 17, 1999. The photos show a musical performance at the Cape Verdean Social Club in Waterbury, with musicians Jorge Job (cavaquinho), Djim Job (bass guitar), and John deBrito (violin), along with other musicians and audience members and Pelagio Silva, President of the Cape Verdean Social Club.
Subject Note for 2015.196.337.1-.12: A locally-based team of Puerto Rican artists, in collaboration with CCHAP at the Institute for Community Research, Guakia, and the Crafts Development Office of Puerto Rico's Economic Development Department (PRIDCO), worked together to bring a multi-faceted program of Puerto Rican traditional arts to Hartford during the summer of 1999. "Mano a Mano: Puerto Rican Traditional Arts from Island to City," began with the July 1, 1999, opening at the ICR gallery of an exhibition of fourteen craft forms practiced in Puerto Rico. Later in the summer, five master traditional artists traveled from Puerto Rico to offer week-long workshops in their craft forms to the public. After the workshops ended, participants who wanted to continue working with their crafts were mentored by the local artists on the project team.
This project was funded by the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund Community Folklife Program, the Roberts Foundation, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the CT Commission on the Arts, PRIDCO, and the Institute for Community Research
Members of the project team were Melanio J. González, Pavlova Mezquida (PRIDCO), Glaisma Pérez-Silva, Graciela Quiñones-Rodríguez, Marcelina Sierra, Victor M. Sterling, and Lynne Williamson. Because of the knowledge and time needed to locate and purchase appropriate materials for the five workshops, ICR hired a local Puerto Rican artist, luthier Graciela Quinones Rodriguez, to help coordinate this important aspect as well as recruitment of workshop participants.
The project furthered many goals important to the team, including promoting awareness of the contributions of Puerto Rican artists, increasing access within the Puerto Rican community to training in art and entrepreneurial skills, and encouraging relationships across generations. The traditional arts and crafts of Puerto Rico remain vibrant and beloved, both on the island and in the new places where Puerto Rican people have settled. The project celebrated the strong cultural traditions remembered and practiced by so many in Hartford's large Puerto Rican community. Artistic, social, and cultural practices within Connecticut Puerto Rican communities show a regular and active maintenance of familiar traditions which link urban Puerto Ricans to the island, to which many return for visits. The primary goal of the project was to reinforce these patterns of cultural practice and remembrance. Other goals included: 1. To address the need for more public programming and education in Puerto Rican cultural expressions, both for members of this community and for general audiences; 2. To reinvigorate local Puerto Rican artists by connecting them with master traditional artists from the island who rarely visit the mainland; 3. To help preserve knowledge and practice of Puerto Rican traditional art forms; 4. To provide training and support for local artists who wish to begin or continue to develop an economic base for their artistic productions.
The exhibition drew from the work of master artists and their apprentices who participated in PRIDCO's Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Project. Through the Crafts Development Office of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO), Puerto Rico hosts an island-wide training program in traditional arts. Law 166, first passed in 1986, mandates that five government agencies in Puerto Rico provide services to artisans for their education and for the marketing and promotion of their work. This enlightened policy recognizes that traditional arts contain great cultural value because they express the collective wisdom and the soul of a community of people. Traditional arts also represent a vital link to the past, as they are transmitted from one generation to the next through long-term, informal, one-on-one teaching between a master artist and a student. Learning an artistic form through the process of apprenticeship is a powerful way to pass on cultural knowledge as well as the craft itself; this process also helps to develop relationships across generations.
On display from July 1-October 1999, the exhibit was designed and installed by the same team which produced ICR's successful Herencia Taína exhibit in 1997. PRIDCO loaned art works from its Traditional Arts Apprenticeship project, featuring 16 important craft traditions practiced in Puerto Rico today. Traditions featured included: Marímbolas/Percussion Instruments; Panderos/Plena Tambourines; Volantines/Kites; Vejigantes/Coconut Masks; Hatillo Mascaras/Wire Net Masks; Artesanía en Lata/Tin Crafts; Talla de Gallos/Carved Roosters; Alfarería Tradicional/Indigenous Pottery; Encuadernación/Bookbinding; Papel Maché/Papier Maché; Talla de Santos/Saint Carvings; Estampas Típicas/Folk Houses; Tejido de Bejuco/Liana Weaving; Tejido de Enea/Cattail Weaving; Mueble de Mundillo/Lace Cushion and Holder; Bolillos/Bobbins; Mundillo/Lace.
Based on fieldwork in the Hartford community, ICR and Guakia added examples from local artists working in similar traditions. Based on research done by the PRIDCO's crafts apprenticeship project, Lynne Williamson edited, with PRIDCO and Hartford members of the project team, extensive bilingual labels explaining the art forms. The signage was produced by the Peabody Museum in New Haven. At the opening, which was a Greater Hartford Arts Council First Thursday event, the local cuatro group Amor y Cultura performed.
Puerto-Rican based artists giving workshops were: Angel del Valle - pandero making and playing; Amelia Fonseca - the art of cake decoration; Vicente Valentín - cuatro building; América Nieves - mundillo lace making; and Alice Chéverez teaching indigenous pottery making. Workshops took place at ICR and at locations in the Puerto Rican community. The trainings were free with some materials costs paid by participants; workshops were bilingual.
The weeklong workshops were intensive apprenticeship sessions designed for local artists who already had a level of skill in the tradition being taught or a closely related art form. The purpose is to develop further the skills of artists committed to a tradition so that they will be able to pass it on and perhaps market their work. The last day of each workshop was open to the public. The two music-oriented workshops (cuatro and pandero-making) celebrated with impromptu concerts by participants. Artworks by the teaching artists were displayed in the exhibit.
Two follow-up mentorships were conducted by local traditional artists – Ana Lozada in cake decorating, and Mel Gonzalez in clay art work. They met regularly with workshop participants, encouraging them to continue producing, offering further training in techniques of the art form if necessary, and advising on marketing procedures and outlets.
An unexpected benefit from the workshops was the degree of interaction between the participants, many of whom did not know each other before. CCHAP noticed that while they were engaged in the art forms, participants talked openly about their lives and issues important to them. Such workshops could be a useful setting for social or other research projects because people feel relaxed and informal (and in fact this outcome stimulated the development of CCHAP’s Sewing Circle Project in 2007). During the last session colleagues from Centro Civico, an arts and social service organization in Amsterdam, New York visited the project and became very interested in the potential for arts workshops to enhance communication and information gathering. Also, two of the workshops were held at La Casa Elderly Housing on Park Street, where the seniors showed a great interest in the art activities.
Proportionate to its size, Connecticut has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations on the mainland, especially in the major urban areas of Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, and Waterbury. People arrived from the island in great numbers after World War II to work in both factories and fields, especially eastern Connecticut's tobacco farms. Puerto Ricans in Connecticut are characterized by their migration patterns - they generally don't consider themselves "immigrants" or "settlers" in the state; they came here for work and continue to live here but frequently travel back to the island which they often view as a paradise, a homeland to which they belong and will return. Their nostalgia for the island is undoubtedly heightened by the difficult conditions many Puerto Ricans experience here, especially in cities: considerable prejudice, urban violence, poor schools, as well as high prices and taxes. An often-mentioned statistic compares Connecticut's per capita income, which is the highest in the nation, with its responsibility for four of the country's poorest cities - those listed above. Although large, the Puerto Rican community here is seriously underserved by local cultural, educational, and social organizations.
The community's love for the island and its culture has enhanced Connecticut's cities, especially Hartford, the location of this project's activities. Latinos, primarily Puerto Ricans, make up 35% of Hartford's population. The heart of the community is Park Street, the main thoroughfare in the Puerto Rican neighborhood known as Frog Hollow. Botanicas, bakeries, music clubs, bodegas, and restaurants named for Puerto Rican towns make this a vibrant center of constant activity. Artistic, social, and cultural practices within the community show a regular and active maintenance of beloved traditions which link urban Puerto Ricans to the island, and many return regularly for visits. The primary goal of this project was to reinforce the patterns of cultural practice and remembrance.
Biographical Note for 2015.196.337.13-.24: One of Connecticut's most accomplished Cape Verdean musicians, Jorge Job is a Cape Verdean guitar and cavaquinho player as well as a composer in Krioulu, the local language of Cape Verde. Jorge lives in Waterbury, where he is retired from a lifetime’s work as a cook. Born into a farming family on the island of Sal in 1928, Jorge was a shepherd as a boy. Later, at age 11, he worked in the kitchen of Cape Verde's only international airport, just built at that time on Sal. From the time he was 20, Jorge moved from island to island as a cook and on oil freighters traveling from his island of Sal to the western hemisphere. His morna Shell 15 describes a near disaster suffered by that ship and its crew - including Jorge - when they encountered a hurricane while transporting oil between Cape Verde and Senegal. Jorge worked as a cook at a restaurant in Waterbury where he emigrated with his family in 1974.
Music has always been a central part of Jorge's life, an important vehicle of expression for his experiences. He has written sambas for Carnival, parade marches for soccer teams, coladeiras, and nine mornas with lyrics based on actual events in Cape Verde. People on the islands share each others' sorrows, expressing their grief through mornas. Luis Cordero relates a story about two men tuna-fishing from the rocks, a very dangerous activity because of the depth of the sea and the precipitous cliffs. Ano Novo was written about an imprisoned man; his mother cried when Jorge sang it for her at New Year. Morna d'Corral is a bittersweet song about a lost love from Jorge's youth.
Jorge and his son Rui, a professional keyboard player and record producer, have arranged many of Jorge's compositions for their CD "Geracao," published in 2006. Bassist Djim Job (Jorginho), a professional bass player, has collaborated with his father on several musical ventures including composing mornas under the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2005-2006. Away from Cape Verde and deeply emotional experiences, Jorge doesn't write many mornas these days, saying "morna is very sentimental, you have to have inspiration to create it. Now I would go with another type - bolero, coladeira, samba. I'm crazy for samba!"
Biographical Note for 2015.196.337.13-.24: Djim Job (Jorge Job Jr.) is a Cape Verdean-American bass player based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He is also a composer and vocalist with two CDs and collaboration with his brother Rui and his father Jorge on a CD “Geracao.” Djim has a high reputation as a session musician and has played with many highly regarded Cape Verdean musicians – such as Fantcha, Maria de Barros, Bana, and Lucibela – on tours all over the world as well as on disc. Djim is also a producer and arranger of Cape Verdean music. He participated in Year 8 (2005-2006) of the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program, working with his father Jorge on writing mornas.
Subject Note for 2015.196.337.13-.24: From 1996-1999, CCHAP partnered with members of the Connecticut Cape Verdean community on a community history project to document and present the cultural heritage, especially music, of Connecticut Cape Verdeans. Representing the Cape Verdean Women’s Social Club, community activist Antonia Sequeira had participated in a new program for urban artists organized by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and the Institute for Community Research. Her friend and colleague in that program, Joan Neves, was able to travel to Washington, DC in 1995 for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival which that year featured Cape Verdean culture. Inspired by that experience, Joan and Antonia began to plan for a long-term project to document their local community and its history. They found a partner in Lynne Williamson, Director of the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program, the statewide folk and traditional arts program at the Institute for Community Research. Together the team obtained grants from the Connecticut Humanities Council, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund Community Folklife Program. For three years Antonia, Joan, and Lynne conducted taped interviews with Cape Verdean musicians and tradition bearers across the state, also documenting Cape Verdean neighborhoods, festivals, and activities. Their work resulted in a publication called "Connecticut Cape Verdeans: A Community History" that was distributed to every public library in the state and given to as many Cape Verdeans as possible in the region. On July 17, 1999, the Waterbury Cape Verdean Social Club hosted a concert featuring musicians interviewed during the project, and a panel discussion was held at the Bridgeport Public Library. The materials collected by Antonia and the project team became a valuable archive of Cape Verdean life in Connecticut - information that had never been collected and made available to the public before. The archive was housed at the Institute for Community Research in Hartford and is now part of the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society. Some materials were copied for the Cape Verdean Women’s Club in Bridgeport.
Additional audio, video, and photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
